Loss & Grief – Three (and a half) Years On

24th October 2017 was the third anniversary of Dylan’s death. I wanted to write an update for you all but to be completely honest it was a real shitter of a year and from October until now has been the toughest since Dylan died.

This post is late partly because I didn’t feel up to writing it, but also because three years sounds like such a long time I wasn’t prepared to see it written down.

It feels like a lifetime since I last saw D, but at the same time it feels like for the last three years I’ve been going fast-forward on VHS- I kind of know what happened but it’s all a bit blurry and I’m not really sure how I got from that point to now.

I’m scared to admit that I’m struggling more than ever. The more time goes on the more people expect me to be ok, the more pressure I feel to be feeling better, for the day-to-day to be easier and it’s not. I’ve been hesitant to say it because I don’t want any of you who are grieving to feel like it won’t get better, grief is so wildly different for everyone. I started writing these posts almost as a yearly log of my grief, and I feel I should continue to write them whether that year has been just about bearable or downright awful.

Every day is still a struggle.

If you haven’t lost someone so close to you, it’s hard to imagine when someone says they think about someone every day. It seems like it’s just one of those cliche things people say, and before you’ve experienced it you might get a fleeting thought of ‘surely not EVERY day’.

It’s not a cliche, it’s true.

Dylan was as big a part of my life as I am, there are so many things that remind me of him. Every song I sang to him. Every song we listened to together. Every song we played at his funeral. The park. The beach. My dogs. A wheelchair. A buggy. Anything monkey related. The smell of that Hollister aftershave he put on before the community nurse he had a crush on came over. Gingernut biscuits, drumsticks and blackjacks. The list is never-ending.

Imagine a day where you don’t hear, see, smell, or taste something that reminds you of someone you love. Then believe me when I say not a single day goes by.

I feel numb and lost.

That’s all I feel I can say right now but hopefully things will get better soon.